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Thursday, September 30, 2010

This is my second submission for Virtual Paintout September 2010 challenge, Manhattan. It's oil on 8x10" canvas board.

I figure I would do another quick painting on Manhattan since I had been a commuter into the city everyday for so long. There were so many people at Union Square, doing various things. This dog walker caught my eyes as he and the dogs were just going along minding their own business in midst of all the hustle and bustle.

I experimented with a black underpainting and more loose brush strokes. I wanted to keep things simple so I cut out all the people, but giving a hint of the vendors inside the square. Palatte is very simple, the basic white, ultramarine blue, prussian blue, burnt umber, gold orchre, radiant violet. There's a burst of color on the dog leash with my leftover cadmium red and alizarin.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

When I saw this reference photo at Studio Atelier (ref photo), it reminded me so much of the American southwest paintings by the great Edgar Payne, whose book the Composition of Outdoor Painting I had been reading this summer. So I decided I had to do this challenge.

I did some research on Edgar Payne's painting and his palette. Some indicated his palette included the following: "Hookers green, cadmium yellow light, cadmium red light, van Dyke brown, alizarin crimson, Indian red (red orchre), Indian yellow, Paynes gray, ultramarine blue, and vermilion". I had most of the color except for Indian red and hooders green. I found on the internet that hookers green was a combination of prussian blue and gamdoge (some kind of mustard yellow), so I figured I could fake this one with what I had (prussian blue and yellow orchre). I bought a tube of Indian red from the store, along with terra rosa, which I thought was a lighter and less intense version of Indian red.

I did the sky and clouds first. To show the darker side of the clouds, I used Paynes gray and ultramarine violet, plus white. The highlight of the cloud is white with lemon yellow, and of course, a lot of white and a lot of blending.

The rocks were mostly Indian red, and shifted to terra rosa when I thought Indian red was too intense. The shadow part would be these color mixed with ultramarine blue, and Paynes gray here and there. There's light reflection from the right hand side mountain onto the middle mountain. I cranked up the color temperature by adding in vermilion to the middle mountain.

Finally, I added in a lone horse rider on the street, instead of all the tourists in the original reference photo. I really like Edgar Payne's style and his paintings, and will definitely do some more down the road if I get the right scenes. Maybe we'll pay a visit to the southwest sometime.

Monday, September 20, 2010

The main color of the lemon and wedge is of course lemon yellow, darken down with ultramarine violet, ultramarine blue, there's also a little bit of cadmium yellow, madder. The light portion are mostly colder color, and shades are mostly warm. I kept the lemon more on the greenish lemon side to give it a feel of sourness. Time for some lemonade with honey!

Friday, September 10, 2010

This is for Virtual Paintout September 2010 challenge - Manhattan, New York. It's oil on 10x12 canvas board.

There are so many good views to paint for the Manhattan challenge, and this one caught my eyes because of the humor factor - tourists riding a horse carriage and looking at a horse statue. The lighting was good with good contrast in the Google map picture. (ref photo)

I was curious as to what the statue was, so I looked it up. It's Jose Julian Marti, a Cuban who had fought for Cuba's independence from Spain. The statue depicted his last breath as he was fatally wounded and slumped over on the horse as the panicked horse stood up. This statue is close to Central Park's main entrance at Central Park South and 6th Ave.

I had to artificially cut down the background trees and lighten up the trees so that we can see the statue better. I also made the tourist wearing the white shirt in the sun very bright to make him a main focal point as the tourist looks at the horse statue and it almost looks like the horse statue is looking back at the tourist, while carriage lugging horse just minding its own business and strolling away.